Bad Graces by Kyrie McCauley

Book Review

Elloise Hopkins

At twelve years old, Violet Whitlock, or Liv as she is known, realised her sister hated her. In fact, Everly tried to kill her. At least Liv understood why. It was her fault they went through so many foster homes, after all. Things were not easy for two sisters so different from one another, one cast as the intelligent, successful achiever, and one as the rebellious failure.

Now, at sixteen, Liv finally sees her chance to escape. A summer internship in Alaska, working on a film production of The Tempest, starring none other than pop icon, Paris Grace, promises a life away from her past and everything she has ever dreamed of. All Liv needs to do is assume her sister’s squeaky clean identity in order to secure her place. One last betrayal to find freedom for them both.

Things could not have gone better. Liv finds herself aboard a luxury yacht, surrounded by actresses and pop stars, an Olympian and a social media star, and all the dangers of the film industry, in the form of Vincent Bellegarde, the producer. Still, this is the opportunity of a lifetime. All Liv needs to do is safeguard her secrets. Little does she know that a shipwreck and a dangerously magical island will change the course of her life more than she ever imagined, and change her in ways that will never be reversed.

Bad Graces takes Liv’s story, which was very well grounded with back-story at the start, on a somewhat jarring and unexpected turn. Things move rapidly from the deck of the ship and the necessities of hiding an identity and surviving among strangers, into the world of destructive, supernatural creatures and unseen dangers. The snippets of The Tempest add a nice atmospheric quality, and we have a solid YA horror/survival story.

Things go very badly off course and the crew never makes it to Alaska. The girls find themselves wrecked off an unknown island, with no method of communication. The victims of an ill-conceived publicity stunt, they realise no one will be coming to rescue them, and soon enough it seems the very island, and everything on it, is trying to harm them. Liv and her new friends will have to try every survival trick they know to withstand whatever it is that placed the bones in the tree, and whatever it is that watches them through the darkness.

As a young protagonist, Liv stands strong enough to keep the pages turning and hold her fellow castaways together… just about. Yes, she has an element of naïvety, and yes, at times the author uses that to advantage, in order to create tension through helplessness and self-doubt, and at other times conveniently nudges it aside to aid Liv’s self-preservation. The worldbuilding is superbly sinister, leaving the threats mostly intangible to the last, meaning the threat of danger is ever-present and the reader has to keep going, to at last discover what exactly the girls are facing, and how many of them will still be there at the end.